Ask a Garden Pro: Dealing with lemon damage

CORPUS CHRISTI - QUESTION: I have a lemon tree and all of the fruit are damaged with brown color on the rind, but only on the half of the fruit that faces away from the tree. What's wrong with the fruit?

ANSWER: If you are seeing pitting of the rind, you might be experiencing bird damage.

If the fruit is only discolored, and the citrus rind is smooth, you might be seeing freeze damage. This discoloration happened because that part of the fruit exposed to the elements got slightly colder than the portion of the fruit facing the tree. That is an anomaly this year due to a colder than usual winter.